L’Announcement of their programming had fought the flames of the debate. Muse, too rock, too pop, but not metal enough to play Hellfest? Their performance, carried out Friday evening on the main stage of the festival,, in any case, had enough to bring the group directly into hell. The point tells you his ordeal.
It is 11:05 p.m. on June 20, on the lands of Clisson. The crowd is massaged in front of this famous “Main Stage 1”. On the question of crowds, there is no subject: anyone who imagined that the British would be shunned by the pure and hard metalles were mistaken. “Everything is not good, but it remains monuments of rock, it is to see, I think,” confides shortly before the Jean-Michel concert, Strasbourg in sixty years, sleeve-free denim shirt flocked with Iron Maiden patches, in the midst of Muse’s aficionados, present in number. The public is varied, passionate and curious, as in any self -respecting festival.
A very soft introduction to set the tone
The concert finally starts. The excitement is there, it is undeniable, as the trio from Devon is a tube machine and that their concerts are known to be extraordinary. The lights go out, paintings are adorned with red and … not much happens.
ARCHIVES Muse: “We were very inspired by the movies of the Eighties” Instead of attacking by one of their very innumerable Bangers, Matthew Bellamy and his colleagues start this show, oh so scrutinized, with a brand new single, just revealed: “Unravelling”. It’s cheeky, it’s soft and it has nothing to do in the intro. Worse than everything: it’s not connected! While the charismatic and brilliant leader excites his customized guitar, everyone is taken aback: “But where did the sound go?” »A cold shower, which the tens of thousands of spectators would have preferred to receive a few hours earlier on this scorching day.
The faux pas, it happens, even to the best. After this disappointment, the trio continues with the very catchy “Stockholm Syndrome”, taken from the album Absolution. While on muse paper has something to wake up the people of Clisson, the problems of his continue to spoil the party … It is very simple: some, concerned with their eardrums, are forced to remove their protections from the ears to be able to hear what is going on! Worse, it is above all the voices of the ultra-favors, which recite all the words, which are heard more than that of their idle. Without exaggerating.
If even the most unifying songs do not make the job, there is something to be worried about more recent productions, in particular those which are taken from the latest album of the group – Will of the People – Who had not frankly convinced when it was released in 2022. Founded fears. The VJing may be commensurate with this machine which fills stages, magic does not operate at all, and technical seeds are only accumulating. A certain boredom settles down, but there are so many titles that everyone is waiting for him to be out of the question to escape.
“Hysteria” without hysteria
The arrival of “Hysteria”, one of the greatest hits, finally wakes up the audience … For good reason: it is especially Christopher Wolstenholmse who holds the show here, the bassist advances at the end of the proscenium to launch hostilities. Hope is reborn for a few riffs. And turns off just as dry when not hearing the so masterful solos of Matt Bellamy on this title.
Read too The little ones also had their Hellfest! Keep the suspense here: will never have managed to be settled during the time and a half of the concert. There was better on the guitar, but never on the main voice. Moments that had everything to be sublime, as during the dreamlike and annoyed “New Born”, or the formidable “Time is running out”, were purely and simply spoiled.
Should we blame Muse, if the sound engineer’s mix was completely missed? A priori not. On the other hand, there is a matter to question certain choices of the group. Beyond the fault committed in the introduction, the British trio may have wanted a little too much to show the Hellfest that it had its place in Clisson. Their setlist – which changes every night, a very good point for them – has been focused on pissed off pieces with fatty riffs, as if they too can send heavy. Why not ? But they had nothing to prove, and it all happened to the detriment of other much more interesting songs in their repertoire (“Bliss”, “Map of the problem”, “Muscle Museum”, to name a few …). Let us greet, all the same, their cover of “Stranded”, from Gojira, a nod to our national pride that the whole world was able to discover during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games.
Suplice
To discover
The kangaroo of the day
Answer
Let’s go back to Muse. If the group in the nine albums has been accompanied for years by a fourth man on stage, in this case the producer Dan Lancaster on this tour, his contribution to the performance has something to question. Its techno remixed version of “isolated system”, the effective soundtrack of the film World War Z Interpreted when beat the recall, has literally rotted the original material. Let’s move on to the last two songs of the show, “Uprising” and “Knights of Cydonia”, introduced by the “man at the harmonica” by Ennio Moricone. It could have been very good to finish. It was not the case.
The most frustrating is that Muse gives water here to the mill to detractors who did not want to see them here. “I was not expecting anything special in the group, but I am still disappointed,” says Louise, originally from the southwest, once the show is finished, and whose friends share disappointment. Whatever one thinks of his discography – oh so varied, not to say unequal -, the trio has produced a phenomenal quantity of titles. Matthew Bellamy is a virtuoso of music, an ingenious guitarist who has always pushed the limits of his instruments. He has created legendary riffs and could afford to teach many metalheads scheduled at Hellfest this year. He is also a sumptuous singer, whose tenor’s voice allows him to evolve in many registers. Ah, if only we could have heard all this …
